


Go home, girl

by Marial1_K



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Eventual Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, F/M, How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Not Beta Read, POV Arya Stark, Post-Canon, Protective Sandor Clegane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-06 02:29:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18841792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marial1_K/pseuds/Marial1_K
Summary: Arya Stark chose to live.During/post 8×05





	Go home, girl

**Author's Note:**

> I actually liked the episode. Yes my favorite scenes were Arya's scenes, but what can I do, i stan only one queen. I loved the scene with the Hound, I think it was my favorite in the whole episode. I just live for their father-daughter like relationship and I cried when he died.

Go home girl, Sandor said. Go home girl, you come with me, you die here.

Sandor, thank you

She knew she would never see him again. She only wished he got his revenge. Wished he got to kill his brother, erasing the only name on his list and second on hers

Go home girl

Arya ran. She sprinted out of the Red Keep and straight to the gates. She thought she was ready for it. She thought she had already seen the worst things possible. No one prepared her for what she was seeing now. Blood and fire and ashes. Buildings were falling from every direction, the screams of the people numbing her brain.

Her temples hurt, her lungs were screaming in pain, her vision was blurry. She was covered in ashes and blood, both hers and other people's.

Go home girl

Home. Sansa was home. Bran was home. Jon was home. Jon. Jon was here. She had to find Jon. Was he even alive? He had to be

You want to be like me?

Revenge was what he has wanted all his life. He grew up to kill his brother. She wasn't like that, and he knew it. He just had to make her see that. And she did. He made her choose between life and death. She made the choice. Now, she just had to survive.

Go home girl

That woman and her child would never see home again, like most of the people of King's Landing. The same people that rooted for her father's execution, thinking him as a traitor. They didn't deserve what they got, not all of them anyway.

You come with me, you die here 

She almost didn't make it behind a wall, when Drogon flew right above her. How she escaped the God of Death once again, she didn't know. She'd already escaped Death too many times. If only Sandor were here. He would've called her a cunt only for thinking about dying.

She had to find Jon. Where was he? Was he even alive? She had to go home. She had to go back to Sansa, to Bran, to him. She tried not to think about him throughout their journey to King's Landing, but she failed too many times to count. That stupid bull asking her that question, almost like telling her to be his lady. A lady. Her, a lady. She loved that stupid bull with all her heart, but he was stupid like that.

Go home girl

She rose up from her place behind the wall, looking around what used to be King's Landing, and spotted the figures of the woman and her daughter, curled together in a last goodbye, before the fire took them both. Suddenly, like a deus ex machina, there was a horse, white and pale, blood coating its body. She jumped on the mare's bare back

Go home girl. You come with me, you die here

These were his last words to her, before they parted ways, her heading towards life, him towards death. She had to honor his words. So, she urged the mare forward, outside of the carnage that used to be King's Landing and towards the northern camp.

Go home girl

Go home girl

Look at me. You wanna be like me?

Go home girl

His last words kept being repeated in her mind, her head still throbbing from her fall, her lungs still screaming in pain, her clothes still covered in ashes. 

She whispered the words like a prayer in her mind, focused on getting out of the city without getting crushed by any of the falling buildings. Everywhere she looked, she saw death. Death by fire, death by falling buildings, death by soldiers. And she thought she knew death. This was something she had never seen before. She urged the mare to go even faster, wanting to get out of this place, to stop smelling burning bodies, to stop seeing mutilated and decapitated people.

The Starks don't do well in this city, after all.

She could finally breath again. She reached the camp faster and easier than she realized, and jumped of the horse, eager to find her brother- she would always see him as her brother, whatever his name was. He was sitting on a rock near the tents, brooding as always. She ran towards him and he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her like it would be their last. She whispered in his ear "I want to go home" 

Go home girl 

She decided to leave early in the morning. She had to go home. She didn't give a fuck about politics, and if Sandor were here, he would agree and say "Fuck the king". 

She couldn't sleep that night. Nightmares kept her up, the screams of the residents of King's Landing thundering in her ears, the smell of burning bodies, shit and piss lingering in the air around the destroyed city. 

She thought about a time when the only thing that kept her alive was the need of revenge. The need to kill every person in the seven kingdoms that helped ruin her family. But now, she has chosen life. However large her desire for revenge might have been, her life meant more to her than the death of every one of them. The Red Keep had fallen, meaning Cersei and probably the Mountain had fallen with it. But that meant, so had Sandor.

Go home girl. You come with me, you die here 

He had saved her. Once more, he was the one to save her life and she would never forget that. Even if his name had disappeared into thin air the moment he died, even if men and women all over the seven kingdoms would only ever know him as The Hound. She knew him as Sandor. The man who saved her life far too many times. 

Arya stayed awake for many hours, and only fell asleep a little before sunrise. She was up on her feet not much later, getting the horse ready. She bid her brother and Ser Davos goodbye and started her journey back home.

Go home girl

She only stopped to drink water from rivers and some ins so both her and the mare could get some sleep. When she reached the Crossroads, she didn't know how many days she'd been traveling. They only thing she knew, was that she wanted to be home already. She hugged Hot Pie as always, telling him that Cersei was dead, that Daenerys had burned down King's Landing and that she was headed home. He didn't come with her.

Go home girl.

She was almost there. She gazed Winterfell from the hill she was on, and it was almost like the time she came back from Braavos. Only this time, there were no guards at the gates, one side of the wall that she and Bran used to climb all the time when they were little had broken down from dragonfire and am eerie silence hung all around her childhood home. But as soon as the mare's hooves sounded at the ground she saw her sister running down the steps. She threw herself into Sansa's awaiting arms and let herself break down. Arya Stark never cried, at least not until now. 

She cried for everyone that she had lost up until now. She cried for her father, who lost his head for loyalty. She cried for Syrio and Yoren, who died protecting her. She cried for her mother and Robb, who were betrayed,slaughtered and mutilated. She cried for Lady Crane who treated her wounds and died for her. She cried for Rickon, whom she didn't even remember. And she cried for Sandor. The man who was there for her in ways she couldn't appreciate back then, but did now. She didn't know how long she cried for, but when she stopped her eyes were red and puffy, Sansa's dress was wet from her tears and a small group of people had gathered around them. 

And in the middle of the group, there he was. Her stupid bull. She let her sister go and ran towards him, jumping in his embrace and hiding her face in his neck. He smelled like home. He didn't smell of burning bodies, or blood or ash and fire. He smelled of melted metal, and charcoal and home. She kissed him like there was no tomorrow. Maybe there was, maybe there wasn't. She kissed him to show him how she felt. She didn't need to tell him, he understood that much. They kissed and kissed and kissed and they didn't break apart, not until there was a sniffle heard from behind. Arya let go of Gendry, turning around only to see her sister crying happy tears. 

She was happy too.

Later that night, as she stood by the window, Gendry's arms around her, his head resting on her shoulder, she looked at the stars wishing for Sandor to be happy wherever he was.

Sandor, thank you- she thought to herself, hoping he could hear her.

As she leaned back on Gendry, she whispered into the air "I'm home"

And for a minute, she thought she had heard someone whisper "Yes, you are"


End file.
